The 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris attracted nearly 600 million readers during the 2 weeks of the Games—that’s 13x more readers than the recent global IT outage. Big brands sign away hundreds of millions of dollars, sometimes billions, to sponsor the Olympics.
Which brands came out ahead with readers? I analyzed readership (unique visitors to an article) for over 20,000 articles covering the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics and its sponsors across hundreds of U.S. national, business, lifestyle, and trade outlets. Keep reading for a preview of my findings.
Creative activations win reader attention.
Over 6 million people read about Coca-Cola’s involvement in the Summer Olympics, including the food and beverage giant’s collaboration with the International Olympic Committee to create the official Olympics song, ‘Hello World,’ featuring Ryan Tedder, Gwen Stefani, and Anderson .Paak. Coca-Cola’s Olympic song and Toyota’s hydrogen-powered athlete transport vehicles were some of the most-read sponsor stories of the Games.
You can insert yourself in a negative news cycle and still win.
Being a problem solver in a negative news cycle can help you come out on top. Coca-Cola was able to insert itself in a negative news cycle when news surfaced that athletes were drinking Coke to combat bacteria exposure from the polluted Seine River. It ultimately turned one of the biggest negative stories from the Olympics into a positive for the brand.
It’s only 2 weeks but Olympics-fatigue still impacts readers.
Readership was the highest at the start of the Olympics and depleted as events progressed. People reading about the closing ceremony was only 38% of that for the opening ceremony.
Front-loading news at the beginning of the Olympics is where brands made the most impact because that’s when reader attention peaked.
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